Civility and Respect at Work: Healthy Teams Don't Always Agree (and They Don't Have To)

Picture the healthiest team you've ever been part of. Did everyone always agree? Probably not. In fact, the healthiest teams tend to disagree quite often. They challenge ideas, ask thoughtful questions and look at problems from different perspectives. They respectfully debate different approaches before making decisions.

What makes those teams healthy isn't the absence of disagreement. It's the presence of respect.

Somewhere along the way, many organizations started confusing civility with agreement and respect with avoiding conflict. They're not the same thing.

The fourth psychosocial factor in the CSA Standard on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace is Civility and Respect. It refers to a workplace where people consistently, reliably interact with one another in a respectful and considerate manner.

Notice what isn't included in that definition. It doesn't say everyone has to like each other, avoid difficult conversations or think the same way. Instead, it asks us to create workplaces where every person is treated with dignity, professionalism and consideration, even when opinions differ. That distinction matters.

Welcome to today's instalment of my How to Eat an Elephant series, where we break down the National Standard into manageable, practical pieces. Civility and Respect is one of those foundational “first bites” that shapes everything else that follows.

Healthy Conflict Is Good for Business

Some leaders become uncomfortable when people disagree. Meetings feel tense, opinions differ and someone challenges a decision. The instinct is often to restore harmony as quickly as possible. Not a whole lot of us like conflict, right? So this instinct, to me anyway, totally makes sense.

But healthy organizations don't avoid disagreement. They actually encourage it! Without at least occasional disagreement, innovation is nearly impossible.

When people with different backgrounds, experiences and expertise bring different ideas forward, organizations make better decisions. Problems are examined from multiple angles, risks are identified earlier and innovation improves because people aren't afraid to question the status quo.

The goal isn't to eliminate conflict. The goal is to ensure conflict stays focused on ideas, not people.

Healthy teams challenge assumptions, while unhealthy teams attack character. Healthy teams ask, “Help me understand why you see it that way,” while unhealthy teams respond with sarcasm, defensiveness or personal criticism.

Respect doesn't require agreement. It requires professionalism.

In fact, if everyone always agrees in every meeting, it's worth asking whether people genuinely share the same opinion, or whether they've simply learned it's safer not to speak up. Sometimes what looks on the surface like a cohesive, agreeable team is actually a team that lacks psychological safety.

Respect Doesn't Mean Avoiding Difficult Conversations

Another common misconception is that being respectful means being nice all the time. It doesn't. One of the most respectful things a leader can do is address a difficult issue early, instead of allowing frustration, resentment or confusion to quietly grow.

Respectful conversations might sound like:

“I'd like to talk about something that's been on my mind.”

“Can you help me understand your perspective?”

“I see this differently.”

“I have some feedback I'd like to share.”

“What can we learn from this?”

These conversations aren't always comfortable but they should always protect the other person's dignity. Avoiding difficult conversations often feels kinder in the moment, but it usually creates bigger problems later.

These Skills Don't Stay at Work

One of the things I love most about this psychosocial factor is that the skills we're talking about don't just make us better colleagues. They make us better people.

Think about it. How often do we have to navigate disagreement outside of work? With our partner, our kids, friends, parents, siblings, neighbours. If we're honest, most of us have at least one relationship where communication during conflict doesn't always go as smoothly as we'd like.

Can you think of a time when you and your spouse disagreed about something and, because of your different communication styles, it escalated into a full-blown argument? Looking back, could you admit there were moments where you could have done a better job of listening to understand their perspective instead of focusing on getting your own point across?

I know I can!

My partner Grant and I are wired very differently when it comes to conflict. His default setting is to go along with things and shy away from disagreement at all costs. I'm much more comfortable debating ideas and working through problems out loud… sometimes to the point where I "over-process", meaning I often beat the proverbial dead horse. (I call my non-stop communication habits an occupational hazard for doing what I do for a living!). Neither approach is inherently right or wrong, but those different communication styles can create challenges. During disagreements, he can end up feeling unheard, while I can unintentionally steamroll the conversation. On the flip side, I sometimes find myself wishing he'd be more direct about what he's really thinking instead of trying to keep the peace and I know there have been times he’s wished I didn’t talk, talk, talk every minor thing to death. (Although he’s wise enough to phrase it a little more kindly than that! 😉)

The point is, we all bring different communication styles into every relationship we have, whether it's at work or at home.

That's one of the reasons I believe workplaces have such an incredible opportunity here. Every respectful disagreement, every constructive conversation and every opportunity to work collaboratively toward a solution gives us a chance to strengthen those conflict resolution muscles. We get better at perspective-taking. We become more comfortable setting healthy boundaries. We learn how to advocate for ourselves without dismissing others. We practice finding common ground even when we don't see eye to eye.

Those are life skills, not just workplace skills.

It's the Little Things That Matter Most

When people hear the phrase “disrespectful workplace,” they often imagine yelling, bullying or harassment. To state the obvious, those behaviours certainly have no place at work. However, in many ways blatant harassment is usually easier to identify and address than incivility, which can be pretty subtle.

Incivility often shows up in smaller, everyday behaviours: interrupting someone before they've finished speaking, rolling your eyes during a meeting, ignoring someone's email, taking credit for another person's work, making sarcastic comments, talking over quieter employees, checking your phone while someone is speaking, leaving someone out of conversations or decisions or failing to acknowledge contributions.

Each interaction may seem insignificant on its own, but culture is rarely shaped by one dramatic event. It's shaped by hundreds, thousands, millions of ordinary interactions that quietly teach people what's acceptable.

Every conversation either strengthens trust or weakens it and every interaction sends a message.

Civility Isn't Soft

Some people hear the words civility and respect and assume they mean lowering expectations or avoiding accountability. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Respect isn't about making everyone comfortable. It's about ensuring people are treated with dignity while being held to clear and consistent expectations.

You can hold someone accountable without embarrassing them. You can disagree without being a disagreeable person. You can challenge an idea without attacking the person who shared it.

In fact, it often takes far more professionalism to remain respectful when you're frustrated than when everything is going smoothly. Anyone can be civil on a good day. Character is revealed on the difficult ones.

What We Tolerate Becomes Our Culture

There's a very apt saying that culture is defined by the worst behaviour that's tolerated in a workplace. Like we discussed back in the first "How to Eat an Elephant" post, organizational culture isn't created by mission statements on a wall. It's created by the behaviours people experience every day and more importantly, by the behaviours that go unaddressed.

If interruptions become normal, if gossip becomes entertainment, if disrespectful jokes are laughed off or if certain employees are consistently dismissed, people notice. Before long, employees stop asking questions, stop offering ideas and stop challenging decisions. Not because they don't care, but because they've learned it isn't psychologically safe to do so.

This is where Civility and Respect intersects with another psychosocial factor we'll explore later in the series: Psychological Protection (aka psychological safety). Respectful interactions help create the conditions where people feel safe contributing, speaking up and being themselves at work.

Everyone Owns Workplace Culture

Leaders absolutely play an important role. Employees pay close attention to what leaders model, reinforce and tolerate. But creating a respectful workplace isn't leadership's responsibility alone. Respect isn't something managers do for employees, it's something every employee contributes to.

It shows up in conversations between coworkers, in emails, in meetings, in lunchrooms, when someone makes a mistake and when someone has a different opinion. Every interaction is an opportunity to strengthen (or weaken) the culture.

A Question Worth Asking

Imagine a new employee joined your organization tomorrow. They never attended orientation, never read your mission statement and never saw your values on a wall. Everything they learned about civility and respect came from watching how people interacted during their first week.

What would they conclude? How would they describe their new workplace to their spouse or a friend?

Would they see people listening to understand? Would they see healthy debate where different opinions are welcomed? Would they see accountability delivered with professionalism? Would they see kindness, courtesy and respect, even during difficult conversations?

Remember: civility and respect aren't built through policies. They're built through everyday choices, one conversation at a time.

Thanks for reading, folks! Be sure to join me again next week when I'll be exploring psychosocial factor #5, Psychological Demands. This is one of my personal favourites to talk about because there's so much organizations can do to be proactive, right from the hiring stage. We'll look at the difference between healthy challenge and harmful psychological demands, why emotionally demanding work affects people differently and what organizations can do to support employees without lowering expectations. See you then!

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Elizabeth Eldridge is a Psychological Health & Safety Consultant based in southern New Brunswick, Canada. In addition to keynote speaking, event emceeing, consulting services and corporate training on mental health in the workplace, she supports organizations across the country on the adoption of Canada's best practice guidelines on psychological health and safety management. She is also the Founder & President of Arpeggio Health Services which provides standardized education programs like Mental Health First Aid, The Working Mind, QPR Suicide Prevention and more.

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